Octopus Chokes Dolphin to Death & Fungi May One Day Repair America's Infrastructure

Back in 30 August 2015 a dead bottlenose dolphin was discovered on Stratham Beach, Western Australia with a  Maori octopus (Macroctopus maorum) sticking out of its mouth. Here's a photo of how it looked like:

(credit) 

Soon after, the dolphin was taken to the lab of Nahiid Stephens, a pathologist at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia for further analysis and to find out why it died. Well, I am no expert in dolphins but if I was to take a guess I would say it choked to death. And like always, it turns out I would be right. Again!

The first thing Stephens discovered was that the corpse belonged to Giligan, a dolphin that was tracked since 2007. And now, according to a new paper with the results of the autopsy Stephens performed, the poor dolphin choked to death after trying to swallow it whole. Interestingly, although there are numerous reported cases of non-drowning asphyxiation in cetacean species, this appears to be the first reported asphyxiation of a cetacean resulting from an octopus or any other cephalopod in general. 

But why did it choke? Here's the cool thing I learned today. Like humans, dolphins also have an epiglotis. When humans swallow, it closes to prevent aspiration, forcing the swallowed liquids or food to go along the esophagus instead of our.. lungs. Dolphins can disengage their epiglottis (which connects the larynx to the blowhole) to open up their throats and swallow large pieces of food. 

But as Giligan swallowed the octopus it appears that it grabbed onto it's larynx with a tentacle and refused to go down. When the dolphin was opened up,  the octopus was still obstructing its pharynx, larynx and oesophagus. 

This makes me hungry! (photo from the autopsy)

With an octopus tentacles remaining functional for over an hour while dolphins can hold their breath for a maximum of 15 minutes, poor Giligan stand no chance at beating the octopus in a game of time.

But to be fair, it's not like Giligan got unlucky or something. Giligan was about 240 meters long, whereas the octopus he tried to swallow had an approximate length of 130 cm. I am sure he could find something smaller than half his length to eat!

Fungi May One Day Heal The Crumbling Infrastructure

Now, in other totally un-related news here's another "cool" story I found out today. Apparently, researchers at  the Binghamton University of New York believe they can "repair cracks in aging concrete permanently, and help save America's crumbling infrastructure" with.... fungi! Yeah, you heard that right, with fungi. When I first read the headline I thought, "Oh, that sounds very interesting"

Well, it turns out this is more of a novel idea and they don't have anything yet..concrete to show. Their initial screening of various fungi candidates showed that  Trichoderma reesei  has great potential to be used in bio-based self-healing concrete for sustainable infrastructure. Could this fungi save America's crumbling infrastructure?

Well, the research is still in the very early stages but the researchers behind the project say that they are hopeful that with certain modifications T. reesei will be one day able to "effectively fill the cracks". 

Well, if you ask me I doubt so. It just sounds like one of those "promising" things that pop up every now and then in the news, never to be heard again. Don't forget, I am always right :P